


Lean On Me

by Bremmatron33



Series: Energex In The Water [5]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:39:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bremmatron33/pseuds/Bremmatron33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodimus knows that Knock Out is keeping something hidden away in that temple of his and he is going to find out what it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lean On Me

**Author's Note:**

> I mean I don't even know, I hope you like it. Dreadwing can only speak to Knock Out.

Knock Out milled about the temple debating on the issue at hand. The chassis were stacking up and Knock Out was running out of room. They hadn’t thought this through all the way, Magnus wanted him to take care of the dead, preserve them till more mechs returned home, any dead chassis could be a brother, sister, endura, a conjunx. While that was a lovely sentiment there was simply no way he could keep that many bodies for that long, there had to be another way.

_“Why not just save the skulls and maybe the spark chamber and then lay the rest to Cybertron, there is plenty of room in the Catacombs to store that.”_

Knock Out mulled over Dreadwing's suggestion, it would be much easier and reasonable. “That’s a good solution but I don’t know how Magnus will handle it, knowing him he’ll want funerals for every last Autobot sap no matter if they have anyone left to mourn them or not.”

_“That’s unfeasible, he can not expect that from you, just keep the skulls and convince him a memorial service would be better. All he cares about is that each name of each deceased bot is marked down to give a loved one definite proof; the skulls will do that plenty.”_

“Hmm, your right, Primus it’s nice to finally have a mech who agrees with me again, I’m going to get started on the ones I’ve already worked on. It’s a shame to waste my work but, what else can I do. I have Long Haul scouring the city for me, so he will be bringing me some new faces, Frenzy and Rumble will be assisting him so they are expected.” Knock Out moved to leave, Dreadwing called out for him.

_“Knock Out?”_

“Yes. What?”

_“Skyquake?”_

“Starscream is getting him, he’s bringing home all the mech’s from earth including your own body and even Cliffjumper, and plenty more not from earth. Don’t be angry with me there’s not many mechs I trust to do my work for me and I already have Lockdown on a mission, besides think of it as penance for him. Starscream will have to deal with not only that stupid otherworld but also his own failures, I didn’t tell him the dark energon has probably worn off by now. Starscream may have problems with taking orders but I gave him a spaceship so he was more than happy to do me a favor. I also may have stroked his ego a bit about it but when don’t I with him. When all of you get here I will make sure to give everyone a proper funeral, unfortunately I will have to keep your body hidden but rest assured when I reunite Skyquake to Cybertron your body will be with him.” Dreadwing dimmed his optics his servos curling, he couldn’t blame the young doctor, working with limited resources as he was.

 _“Would there be no way to...ask another miracle from you dear emissary.”_ Dreadwing pulled Knock Out close his tiny waist easily encompassed by Dreadwing's arm. Knock Out valued closeness, warm soft touches, especially from bots who were not eager to give them out. He brought up his large servo to frame a side of the Sylph’s face and stroked a cheek strut gently with his thumb.

Knock Out laughed at him, “Dreadwing  I can try if you would like, you don’t have to make a fuss. You should be making a fuss over me simply because I’m worth it not because you want something from me. I don’t want to get your hopes up however, the way I do things the Necrobot is the final say on whether or not a spark is returned and sometimes he can be a pain, he doesn't just give a spark back because you want it. There is a more definite way of getting a spark you want back but dealing with Mortilus is never easy even if his gifts are grand. Besides the Autobots know Skyquake is dead, they know Breakdown is dead, that’s why I brought back you.” Knock Out covered Dreadwing’s servo with his own, “I can release you anytime you wish, you are lovely company but I brought you back to protect me because I was worried about Magnus' ward creating trouble for me, but I don’t have to worry really if Magnus picked me over the mech he doted on I don’t have to worry about other mechs even the more... vocal Autobots. All you need to do is say the word.”

_“I am here doctor as long as you need me, I miss my brother but I am happy simply living with you. Skyquake's spark is at peace and while I wish he could join us I understand the restriction.”_

“I’m glad to hear that I was worried you would be angry for me pulling you away and it’s nice to have someone as loyal as yourself but I am afraid I wouldn’t know when to let you go, I know being linked to me makes your existence restrictive but it’s still a second chance and I don’t think I would ever take that back from you until you told me you were finally content with returning.”

Dreadwing was surprised, he had never gotten to see this kind side of the young doctor. On the Nemesis Knock Out was “caring” in a way, as all medics were but he was not warm or considerate as he was now. _“I will remember that.”_

“Good, now I must get to work, thank you for your safety and your masonry skills. The temple is looking exquisite thanks to you helping fix up the place!” Knock Out smiled, it had been forever since Dreadwing had seen one of the medics genuine smiles, modest and faint but sweet all the same.

_“Whatever I can do to help Doctor.”_

“Alright Hot Rod, we’re just going to confront a sexy Decepticon Sylph wizard doctor no big deal we can do this! Rodimus he might have an army of dead Cons protecting him. That might be true Hot Rod but we can take him we can do anything. But Rodimus what if he stashing his combiner boyfriends here we can’t take on a combiner? It’s ok they can’t combine because one of them is dead so we don’t have to worry about that. Rodimus he can bring the dead back to life, there is going to be a weird slightly undead combiner as soon as we get to this temple that we will have to deal with. Well now you are just focusing on the negatives Hot Rod, think about how cool fighting a partially undead combiner is going to be. Primus I wish I had Drift and Springer. Don’t be a sparkling this mad doctor already doesn’t take you seriously we need to do this on our own. We could of at least brought Perceptor, nobody knows he’s actually a sick sniper and not just some nerd. No Hot Rod, what if we actually needed his help, do you wanna get saved by a nerd; I don’t think so, he would never take us seriously then. We can just go back to HQ, he left on his own clearly that means we won even if it doesn’t feel like we did. DON’T USE YOUR MIND GAMES ON ME HOT ROD, we didn’t win he just decided the game wasn’t worth playing anymore, he just thinks we’re a dumb kid desperate to impress. But Rodimus that’s what we are. NO, we are a STAR and we are going to be the BEST choice and we are going to MAKE MAGNUS PROUD! Alright good pep talk.”

Rodimus looked at the temple, a towering crystal edifice that looked straight out of golden age propaganda. Except it didn’t feel welcoming, even with the Cons he knew were lurking inside somewhere. He had watched Long Haul and those two Minibrats enter so that meant that there were probably thousands hidden away in the walls somewhere. The temple seemed otherworldly and distant like he shouldn’t be there, the temple itself saying, “you have no business here yet young one”. It was off putting, it was weird, but Rodimus was committed.

Getting into the temple however proved harder than it looked, finding the entrance was easy enough but once inside there was a spiraling hallway which he followed up, and that got him nothing but a sweet view of Iacon. Back down the stairs and after circling the first floor about a dozen times Rodimus finally discovered that the temple was trying to pull some Labyrinth slag on him, and by Primus did it do that a lot, it was quite clear no normal mech was ever supposed to go into this kaleidoscope pit. Rodimus found himself distracted for almost three hours stuck in one room looking like an idiot beastformer as he tried to follow the constant changing light to look at all the art that had been etched into the walls not realizing till two hours in it was himself that was causing the erratic light. Not one of his brightest moments but if Drift had been with him the young swordsman would surely have described the event as spiritual.

Rodimus would later describe it as trippy, pleasant, but overall a stupid way to waste three hours. After all of that he ended up back outside the temple. This was supposed to be easy, there was supposed to be a gigantic city that hundreds of mechs could live in and Rodimus could see all of that but he was peeling his paint from the overall stress of trying to get to it, so he waited. Eventually he spotted Long Haul through the temple windows and after some intense scout work that would make Bumblebee weep, he figured it out. Up to the third floor, down a weird corridor that Rodimus didn’t know wasn’t actually a wall, cross the strange skywalk, and down another corridor and bam, another building. “PRIMUS WHY?”

Back up the stairs, back through the corridors, once again on the skywalks but this time go to the right, open the door, and another door, and another door, up another flight of stairs and... , “YES, FINALLY I DID IT!” Finally out in the strange courtyard, and Primus was it worth it Rodimus had never seen a more beautiful place. The temple didn’t feel like a building it felt like a city, like it never ended, and even here in the courtyard there was massive spires each containing who knew how many rooms. How had a caste of mechs nobody even thought existed gotten such a set-up. Why did the Autobots even bother making a new HQ when they just could have set up base here. It wasn’t as if it wasn’t well hidden, it had taken the young mech hours just to get past the front door.

It didn’t take the Autobot long to figure out the reason why the Sylph had to work separate from the others, the place reeked. It smelled like rust and decaying fluid and even being out in the open air courtyard Rodimus could smell the death on this place so bad that he felt as if he would pass out at any second. It smelled just like quarantine. “No..no...no....” , his processor began acting up. Flashes of memories, nightmares, the smell of rust more intense now than ever, he couldn’t pull his focus from it, couldn’t pull himself back together. He vented erratically, clinging servos and leaking optics flashed in the back of his memory, his vision turning white at the edges he could feel his chassis shaking, he lurched forward, dry heaving.

Suddenly there was a strong servo on his shoulder his world slowed for a moment, the blue jet the glitching corpse found him the mission has been compromised, he felt his limbs degrade from the agitation, Rodimus hugged himself tightly and tried to get away from the Con the best he could, his chassis wouldn’t move. “NO, NO, NO,NO,NO YOU’RE JUST MAKING IT WORSE!” He managed to shake off the bigger mech's touch, managed to get just far enough away before curling in on himself. His spark was jolting uncomfortably “You’re a failure, nothing but a huge glitch in the system. Why were we even forged if all we can do is slag ourselves in the end. What are we doing here, why can’t we do anything.”

He didn’t remember passing out but as Rodimus onlined his optics he was greeted with darkness. Something was wrapped around his helm, some sort of...fabric. He attempted to remove it but found his limbs along with the rest of his chassis was fragging cocooned in multiple berth tarps. What in Primus’ name was going on, was this some weird ritual, was he about to get eaten? Not today slagger! After some moment of furious wriggling Rodimus managed to fall off the berth he supposed he had been lying on, and with some wildly throwing himself about he managed to get an arm free and then eventually the rest of himself. He brought his servos up to explore his helm, as he had thought it was just more fabric, he looked for the end of it and quickly freed his face. Finally free he vented deeply, it had been hot in all that junk. He examined his surroundings, he was in a bedroom. lying in a pile of well they weren’t tarps they were actually shrouds, much more flamboyant and gaudy but still similar enough to the one Knock Out wore. The fabric that had been wrapped around his helm was gaudy shroud fabric too just cut into fat strips and slightly oily...and scented.

Rodimus bunched up the fabric and pressed the bundle to his face and vented deeply greedily huffing the relaxing fragrance. It smelled like tourmaline, jade, neon,salt, and freshly mined copper. He laid back against the soft pile and let himself bliss out for a moment or two. He had freaked out, full blown creepy disembodied servos touching him all over freaked out, but who had wrapped him up. It couldn’t have been Knock Out...could it? Decepticon medics were like the worst though, they didn’t care about anyone and were more interested in weird experiments, and to the pit they care about any mech suffering mentally, once you stopped being a useful game piece the Cons would toss you aside. Cons don’t care about anyone but themselves and the mechs who are worth something to them. Besides even Ratchet wasn’t that good with dealing with bots mental issues and he was twice the medic Knock Out could ever be. Rodimus vented deeply again letting the pleasant aroma sooth his thoughts. There was no way that Con actually helped him, it just wasn’t possible.

“We are not abandoning the mission! We can’t really walk around this place without feeling…,” Rodimus made a complicated gesture with his servos, “...bluaghagh though, we should just call it quits his defenses are just too powerful. I know surrounding himself in corpses...what a sicko. We have to find a way out of this room. See we have to explore anyway so there is no reason we can’t just prime up and find him. He’s probably in some deep dark underground bathing in dead energon and singing weird sexy evil magic songs. Primus don’t think about it Hot Rod his power is too strong, we have to fight his influence WE’RE BETTER THAN THIS, I CAN’T LOSE YOU! PIT, he’s gone. I’m on my own, come on Rodimus we can do this!”

Rodimus tied some of the fabric strips together and wrapped them around his neck as an impromptu scarf, he wasn’t sure if it would completely mask the rust smell but it was the only reliable solution at the moment. Leaving the sanctuary of his pleasant smelling room he ran down flight after flight of stairs looking for any semblance to the courtyard he had remembered. This time it was easy, leaving through the exit on the ground floor he found the courtyard. Night had fallen and unlike the glittery mess it had once been, the entire temple was now a glowing glittery mess. “He’s trying to distract me with cool light shows, it won’t work this time Con.”

“Oh Primus I think this place smells worse than it did before!” The young Autobot pulled his scarf tighter hoping to drown out the smell. It helped enough, he straightened himself and continued his search through the temple grounds. Knock Out was nowhere to be found, out in the open cold winds blew through the temple heralding the change of the seasons. Rodimus’ plates rattled as the freezing air whipped through his seams. “He knows we’re close he’s throwing everything he can think of at us!”

Then, when Rodimus least expected it Knock Out emerged. The young Autobot was not prepared. Carrying the chassis of some poor slagger twice his size with well trained ease was the young Sylph. Wearing nothing but the bangles around his peds and covered in layers of slick frozen energon Knock Out slowly made his way towards Rodimus’ hiding spot. Knock Out’s white chassis glittered and shone in the glow of the temple, his hips swaying sensually perfectly synchronised with the swaying of his free arm his movement accentuated by the light flurries of snow that whipped around him as he walked. It was in that moment Rodimus realised that he had lost and that there would be no winning against the Con because Knock Out was no Con but a god just as the lore presumed, wise and beautiful with unknow dark powers the likes of which none had ever seen, Rodimus found himself smitten. His spark flared like a star, his chassis warm even in the chill. He would accept his fate, for even if he couldn’t stop the evil Sylph and his ways, Rodimus was prepared to risk it all, he would sacrifice himself to the god, he would save Magnus, he would save Cybertron.

Rodimus jumped from his hiding spot revealing himself to the Sylph, Knock Out looked unfazed, smug even. He dropped the the corpse he had been carrying and placed his servos on his hips.  
“So Magnus actually kicked you out, what a pitty I guess you truly are just a worthless scrap heap.”

Rodimus wouldn’t let Knock Out’s insults get to him, inside that cold immortal spark there was kindness somewhere the scarf around his neck was proof of that. He took the Sylph in his arms the small god as cold and solid as a block of carbon dioxide. “You will never have Magnus Knock Out, Cybertron needs him.”

“Why should I care about Magnus any longer when I have what I wanted in the first place, you Rodimus.” Knock Out crooned as he stroked the taller mech’s chassis, jewel tipped talons scratching all the right places. Rodimus could feel the Sylph's spell tightening around him. “Now that I have you I have all three of the Primeletts there is nothing stopping me from killing Magnus and taking over Cybertron, OH, HOHOHO!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” But there was nothing Rodimus could do, his spark belonged to the Sylph now.

“Alright so how did we do?”

“Yeah Rodimus how close was our story to what actually happened?” Moonracer and Smokescreen stared expectantly at the older mech optics glittering with childish joy.

“I liked the part where you fought with a berth tarp for like three pages.”

“Shut up Bee! You guys were actually pretty spot on for the most part till you got to that ending, but honestly I liked your ending a lot more than what actually happened.”

“Well tell us what happened then.”

“Nah I don’t think you really-”

“Come on hero tell us your glorious tale.”

“I..alright Bee go siphon yourself.” Rodimus rested his faceplate in his servos. “So after the first panic attack I went to go look for Knock Out, he didn’t come out of nowhere looking all hot and god like though. He was in like the underground part of the temple, and that place reeked so I was already getting sick and then I found him sawing off a mech’s head. I...freaked out and fell into the energon collection trough and that was it for me. Knock Out ran over to me to help me and I…purged all over him. Not like it mattered he was covered in energon anyway.” Rodimus sighed loudly and shot a glance at Bee who was looking quite smug, before he begrudgingly continued, “SO HE GAVE ME A BATH like a sparkling, and then he took me to his room which was all perfumed and dark and warm and then he gave me some warm energon and let me cling to him while I calmed down, then I fell into recharge. When I woke up he we were already halfway back to HQ because he was carrying me in chariot mode, so I just let him drive the both of us the rest of the way, and that’s what happened. Are you happy Bee, are you happy Knock Out’s going to kill Magnus and take over Cybertron?”

“Yeah, pretty happy.”


End file.
